


you drew stars, around my scars.

by AnxiousCupcake



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Has a Crush on Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Adrinette | Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Chat Blanc - Freeform, Don't worry, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Ladrien | Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Ladybug, Ladynoir | Adrien Agreste as Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Ladybug, Made up Miraculous Lore, but they're not GRAPHIC per se so my bird brain couldn't decide what to do., dark cupid - Freeform, enemies au, no one dies I promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-28 17:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30142773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnxiousCupcake/pseuds/AnxiousCupcake
Summary: He pries the swab of cotton out of her hands and lets his eyes flicker to where he’d spotted the bruising from a distance. It takes him a moment but he figures out what he’s seeing and he stops breathing.Etched in sharp red lines, is the symbol of a wifi, sitting below the nape of her neck, no wider than three fingers.Absent-mindedly, traces the symbol and almost misses the way she stiffens; he wouldn’t know that she was trying to suppress a shudder. “A gift from the akuma,” she laughs nervously. “They appear everytime I purify an akuma.”“Does the Cure not work on you?”“Well, with major injuries, yes,” she says, as she carefully packs up the first aid box and stows it away neatly behind a potted orchid. “It’s… The price of… Not being in harmony, I guess.”( Or in which Ladybug has scars from purifying the akuma because Chat Noir is her enemy and their partnership is therefore not balanced. Chat - Adrien - finds out and it's the start of a journey neither of them expect. )
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 17
Kudos: 95





	1. sensual politics

**Author's Note:**

> no thoughts, head empty.

Chat Noir does not expect to find her on the supposedly desolate roof, but there she is anyway, a bright red silhouette amidst the overgrown vines of the ornate glasshouse on top of this abandoned building. His annoyance and frustration at his father for akumatizing one of his friends is momentarily forgotten. He lands a little less sneakily than usual, only thrown off balance because he’s startled by her presence. Surprisingly, thankfully and _fortunately_ for him, she hasn’t heard him, thank god. 

She is sitting hunched over, on a rusted wrought iron chair, sat beside an equally worn out wrought iron table, the white paint peeling off in dappling curls all over. Her hair is up in a bun on the top of her head. He doesn’t remember ever seeing her out of her pigtails.

He watches her, feeling a little bit like a creep, through the rose vines that creep over most of the broken entrance of the glasshouse.

Her hand is hovering, slightly shakily over a box he only just notices on the table. She rummages for a little while, before pulling out some cotton and iodine. She’s hurt, she realises. 

_And vulnerable_ , his father’s voice whispers in his head.

He wants to move, but he can’t, as he watches her, transfixed, as a golden zip appears in a small fizz of pink sparkles on her back. Before he has the sense to look away, she unzips just a little bit, dabbing the medicine on there with a wince. He can see some bruising, and can tell she hasn’t reached all of it. 

It’s a split second’s decision, and he knows he’ll regret it. Probably. "Claws in."

She startles when she sees him appear in her line of vision, hand dropping the swab of cotton clumsily as she jumps to her feet, stunned. “ _A-Adrien!_ ”

Her voice is high, eyes wide and her cheeks are flaming. She reminds him so much of Marinette that it hurts, as she flails as she watches before finally seeming to compose herself and ask him in a relatively composed manner, “What are you doing here!”

The lie rolls of his tongue with disturbingly practised ease. “Father owns the building.” He throws in a little shrug, just for effect. 

“Oh.” She buys it. “Um. Sorry for, um, tresspassing?”

She sounds sorry too, and then he notices with interest that there’s more than just a first aid box there. Two notebooks, a couple of pencils - graphite _and_ colour, a _hairbrush_ , a pack of cookies, including an empty packet - from Tom and Sabine’s, he notes - and a hot pink satchel. He realises with a start that she frequents this little rooftop. 

“Looks like we both found the same place to um… unwind?” he trails away, searching for words as he gestures at her things. 

Her eyes widen and he can see panic flash across her face, as she hurriedly starts to shove her things in her backpack as she mutters about getting out of his hair. It is oddly fascinating, seeing her like this, without the sass and composure that she usually has about her. 

“You can stay,” he blurts out, and she stills, blinking at him unsurely.

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” he nods resolutely. _What am I doing?_ “I’d like the company.”

She relaxes and gives him a warm smile, and he once again feels a little disarmed at seeing her like this. She sits back down on the chair, watching him from beneath her lashes as she pulls the first-aid box towards herself.

He clears his throat. “You look like you could use some help with that.”

She blushes. ”You don’t have to-”

He’s already making his way towards her, swallowing thickly as he comes to a stop behind her. He eyes the back of the studs in her ears and feels Plagg shift agitatedly in his pocket. Stiffly, he reaches over her shoulder, noting the hitch in her breath as his forearm brushes her ears; the earrings feel cool against his skin. 

He pries the swab of cotton out of her hands and lets his eyes flicker to where he’d spotted the bruising from a distance. It takes him a moment but he figures out what he’s seeing and he stops breathing. 

Etched in sharp red lines, is the symbol of a wifi, sitting below the nape of her neck, no wider than three fingers. 

He doesn’t comment on it, but wonders. Wonders what it means, and he thinks he knows, but he can’t be sure. He wants to ask her, but he has a feeling she won’t be as forthcoming with him. He supposes he could ask Plagg, and the thought of Plagg reminds him of the kwami’s whining about the miraculouses not being balanced.

Absent-mindedly, traces the symbol and almost misses the way she stiffens; he wouldn’t know that she was trying to suppress a shudder. “A gift from the akuma,” she laughs nervously.

“Oh,” he says quietly, as he steps back, and she hands him a small yellow plastic bag with the bio-hazard symbol on it and he drops the cotton in it. “Does it hurt?”

“A little,” she shrugs, and stands up. “It’s not a big deal, really. I’m used to it.”

“Used to it?” he echoes, with a curious lilt of his head. 

She nods. “They appear everytime I purify an akuma.”

“Does the Cure not work on you?” 

“Well, with major injuries, yes,” she says, as she carefully packs up the first aid box and stows it away neatly behind a potted orchid. “It’s… The price of… Not being in harmony, I guess.” Her eyes widen and she laughs nervously again, shifting on her feet. “Or something, I don’t know. Who knows, magic is so unreliable, am I right?”

He doesn’t pry further; she looks skittish as is, and seems ready to bolt. He is careful with his words, intent on putting her at ease again.

“I wouldn’t know _anything_ about this stuff anyway,” he says with a put-on sheepishness. “My father keeps me locked up at home whenever there’s an akuma o-or anything.”

“That’s good,” she hums in response. “It’s dangerous out there.”

“You seem to do just fine.”

She snorts. “ _Seem_ is the keyword. I’m a mess.”

He blinks in surprise, and she grows nervous again, at his gaping. “A-Anyway. E-Enough about m-me. How come you’re out here at this time of the night?”

He is not surprised at the change of topic; he is surprised though that he even got _that_ much out of someone usually infuriatingly tight-lipped. He can’t help but wonder why in the _world_ she was so forthcoming with him, but he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he decides to roll with it. 

“Um. Had an upsetting day. The akuma today was a friend.” That’s as honest as he can be. 

She looks away. “Alya Césaire, yeah. She was a tough one.”

He can tell she’s far away, but he doesn’t say anything. Every nerve in his body is tingling with the precariousness of the situation. He _shouldn’t be here_ , not _like this_. Despite the alarm bells, he finds himself liking this little bubble, where they don’t hate each other, where she isn’t the infallible superhero, a beacon of good, and he’s not his father’s minion doing his bidding for selfish reasons. 

They sit in silence till she says, “I’m sorry again though, for um, trespassing. I won’t use this place anymore, it’s probably too dangerous anyway.” 

She sounds almost wistful. And he feels a little guilty about the lie, because he really had no jurisdiction to dictate who came and went from here. 

“No!” he blurts out, and she looks at him wide eyed. “You’re… You’re, um, free to use this as you please. I doubt you’ll find another spot as well-hidden as this one.”

She beams at him with an almost childlike glee. It is unsettling. Seeing her like this, makes him curious more than anything. “Thank you!”

He tells himself that this would be the best way to keep a closer eye on the enemy. He had after all found something that could lead him, potentially, to Ladybug’s civilian’s identity. And yet, he doesn’t tell his father this when he returns home that night, keeping the rooftop with the glasshouse, a little secret of his own.


	2. sequin smile, black lipstick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i couldn't figure how to do ladynoir dark cupid ( in the bigger scheme of my plot ) but then... adrinette ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Adrien doesn't go back to the glasshouse. Not yet. He has to decide on _what to do_. All he knows is that he is not going to tell his father. His father would want to rush in immediately, no waiting, no planning or strategizing. But Adrien thinks this is a perfect opportunity to scope out the "enemy", so to speak. He has no idea why, but Ladybug is strangely forthcoming with him. He doesn't know why, and a part of him doesn't _care_ why, but he does know that it's probably something that he should take advantage. He grimaces at the thought; it feels wrong, and manipulative. _Like his father._

He hates that. 

But a part of him is tired. It's been so long and they'll be graduating school in a few months. He doesn't want to carry this _with_ him. He wants to have the infamously stressful life of a university student, revel in it and whine about it to his friends, without the added burden of the increasingly repulsive villainy. He wants to be able to ask Marinette out, and take her out on _uninterrupted_ dates. He wants to get out from under his father's shadow, and his father's roof, away from tiptoeing around conversations and walking on eggshells all the time. 

As is, he's been on the edge about his little discovery. He's subconsciously started to observe people for markings on their skin, though he knows Ladybug is not the kind to just flaunt those damning markings. He prays everyday that his father doesn't decide to interrogate him on his mood. A bitter afterthought tells him that his father didn't probably care enough to. He thinks that's the only reason he's helping his father despite everything because his father didn't care; if he could have his mother, that'd be enough for him. It is all he really wants at this point. 

He just wants this over, and some times, he hates Ladybug for being so stubborn. 

It happens so quickly, that there isn't even time to blink. Chloé's long gone, and now, it's just him and Marinette in the alley. He sees Kim hovering above, grinning maliciously, and he knows his father will be pissed but he doesn't care as he shoves Marinette aside just as Dark Cupid fires his bow. 

He blacks out. 

When he comes to, he's lying flat on his back and it takes him a moment to process things but when he does, he swears Marinette could probably hear the way his heart was racing. He's sure she can, at the very least, _feel_ it. She's lying on top of him, eyes wide and cheeks the fieriest shade of pink he'd ever seen on her; a new favourite shade, he notes absently. He feels the warmth of her palm pressed up against his face, and she's biting her lip so hard that he worries she'll split it. Unthinkingly, he grazes her lower lip with his thumb, prying it away from the wrath of her teeth, and her mouth falls open in a small gasp, blue, _blue_ eyes widening further. 

He knows he's blushing, and in the background he can hear screams. He knows he shouldn't delay his appearance any further, so with great difficulty, he croaks out, "Wh-What happened?"

She squeaks, and it's so endearingly reminiscent of the first few weeks that they'd known each other, that he a soft chuckle escapes him. She scrambles off of him, flustered, and he watches as she fidgets in place nervously. "Kim got akumatized." 

Adrien sighs. "Chloé."

She shrugs helplessly. 

Then, he frowns. "Did I... Did I get hit?"

She stills, and he wonders if he knows how tighly she's gripping her bag. She says nothing, but only nods once in response. Adrien frowns harder and looks at his hands. "I- I don't feel any different."

"Ah," says Marinette, and he looks at her curiously. "I- I- Um- Ahahahahh..ah...aha.." 

He knows her well enough by now to know she's lying. It makes him all the more curious. What is she hiding? She just stares at him, shifting on her feet, looking everywhere but him. 

"Mari?"

She startles and then shakes her head, and shoots him an apologetic look. "Gottagobyeee!" 

And she flees, mumbling something abou stupid fairytales under her breath, as he watches her in wonder. 

She is a little crazy, but he thinks he loves her.

It's only when Chat Noir joins the fight that he pieces together what must have happened. The akuma clearly causes people to loathe each other. He panics momentarily because _oh my god what'd I say to her?_ but then tells himself it couldn't have been that bad given how she looked flustered rather than disgusted or upset at him; at this point, he doesn't even have the focus to be annoyed at Ladybug. The final puzzle piece falls into place when he gets to class and everyone's talking about how some of them had broken the spell with a kiss. 

His cheeks stay flushed throughout the day and he wants to so badly turn around and just _look at her._

He concludes that if he could befriend Ladybug and figure out what makes her tick, the earrings wouldn't be so hard to procure. 

So lost in thoughts as he tried to not to think of the morality of it all, he almost doesn't hear the soft humming coming from the glasshouse he's just arrived at. He peeps into the glasshouse from a higher roof, and nearly chokes at the sight. Ladybug is sat there munching on a _freakin' marigold._ Like... Like, it's a _croissant_ or something. It's so utterly bizzarre that he can't resist, even though he knows it's a side effect of the miraculous; he enjoys curling up in patches of sunlight an unholy amount and has days where he gets exhausted from holding back the urge to knock things over.

He drops onto the roof with a soft thud and finds the door that leads onto the rooftop. Quietly, he cataclysms the lock - he wonders if it'd fix itself the next time Ladybug cast a cure, and also thanks his lucky stars that Ladybug was distracted enough the last time to not notice that despite his claim of coming onto a terrace he owns, the door had been _locked_ \- and detransforms. 

Quietly, he makes his way to her and can't help but watch in amusement as she moves on from marigolds to cosmos. "Hi again," he says casually. 

She jumps nearly a foot in the air, whipping around, a vibrant petal stuck to the corner of her lip. "Oh my _god,_ you gotta stop doing that!!!"

He shrugs, and she seems to realize only a moment later that he'd just watched her eat flowers. "How long have you been here?" she asks suspiciously. 

"Long enough," he smirks, and he sort of wishes he were Chat Noir right now because then he could tease her relentlessly; get a rise out of her. Unfortunately, Adrien and Ladybug did not share _that_ kind of an equation. 

Ladybug looks mortified. "I was um... Told this was the best way to um, pick just the right flowers for a... er, perfume?"

It's hard not to deadpan at the lousiest excuse he's ever heard. He wonders if she's really just that bad at lying, and if so, how people haven't figured her out yet. He also wonders how someone that was so bad at improv figured out her Lucky Charms. Ladybug is strange, he decides. A strange, _strange_ person, he wants to get to know better if only to find a chink in her infallible armour. So he simply smiles at her, and gesturing at the flowers, he says, "Don't stop on my account."

She winces but shoots him a sheepish smile. She doesn't continue on her "snacking" though. There's a faint blush on her cheeks, he notes. "Erm, yeah. Sorry you had to see that. Just... Weird akuma."

_Tell me about it._

"Yeah," he agrees, dropping himself into the chair he'd found her in last time. "Gotta be awful hearing someone you care about talk about how much they loathe you."

"Yeah. It was not... pleasant..." she hums, trailing away as if she wanted to say something more.

She looks at him from the corner of her eye, and chews on her lips nervously. She looks conflicted for a moment, before she nods to herself resolutely. She turns to look at him, brows pinched in a frown, lips pursed in determination. He starts to feel nervous and weary about what she was clearly bracing herself to say. He hopes he hasn't figured her out. That would be extremely inconvenient; he doesn't think it possible though beacuse he's covered his tracks carefully but then again, she _is_ smart. ( And eats flowers, apparently. ) Whatever it was, was making her nervous, and making _him_ jumpy enough to consider calling for his transformation. But that would be risky because _if_ she didn't already know, it-

"... _but I heard that um, true love's kiss, broke the akuma's spell_?"

Her voice is really high-pitched, and the words are spoken in a single breath. So quickly, that it takes him a moment to parse through what she's said - luckily, he's had practice - and when he does, he feels his cheeks light on fire. 

"T-True love?"

Ladybug nods once, looking curious, but also like she wanted to bolt. "Y-Yes! True love's kiss!" She titters nervously. "A kiss of love to break the spell of hate."

"I- I- A f-friend of mine kissed me today!"

" _O-Oh?_ " 

He can see red blooming under her mask, and she clears her throat before looking away. "I kissed a f-friend of mine too."

"Did that, uh, break the spell?"

"Yeah." Her voice comes out in almost a whisper, and she's observing him from beneath her lashes.

She's _shy_ , Adrien realises with a jolt. He can barely believe it. But he supposes he should have known. Whoever is behind the mask, is probably just... a regular, teenage girl. A teenage girl with school work, friends, classroom drama and _boy_ troubles. He finds that the thought of something other than the infallible superhero who scowls at him on an almost weekly basis, is rather disconcerting.

"My spell was broken too."

_True love._

He feels giddy with happiness. His father never stops lecturing him about the banalities of the happy endings in fiction, and how it is all "utter trash" because "life wasn't _fair_ " and there is no such thing as true love; only willingness to make it work. His father might have been right, but the idea of true love has had him entranced for so long that a hollow feeling had settled in his chest as he yearned for it in the loneliness that his house drowned him under. He feels warm now, and he focuses on it so hard that he doesn't notice Ladybug's keen observation of him. 

"I wish I remembered," he says wistfully. 

" _What_?" she squeaks. 

"The kiss," he sighs. "I wish I remembered what it felt like."

Ladybug coughs. "Y-You could ask her again."

" _No_!" he practically yells. "I- I can't, she's my _friend_!"

"A friend who kissed you and broke a curse?!" she argues, her arms flailing wildly. 

"It was probably the platonic form of true love," he huffs, believing it too, because wouldn't that just be his luck?

"I can _assure you_ it's not!" snorts Ladybug.

"Ladybug, you may be the hero of Paris, but even _you_ can't know that," he says with a dismissive snort.

She looks agitated, and he doesn't understand why. Groaning in frustration, she runs a hand through her hair. "I'd _die_ if the guy I kissed asked me out!" she exclaims. "And I would _not_ have kissed him if I didn't have at least a little crush on him!"

"Well, it's not a "crush" for me, _I_ happen to be in _love_ with this girl!" proclaims Adrien, crossing his arms as he tries to stare Ladybug down, but she's gone completely still in shock.

She snaps out of it. "Ask. Her. _Out_." She says with emphasis.

He huffs, but doesn't say anything. He's already given too much away, he thinks, and it's not a risk he's willing to take. He's getting irritated enough as is with Ladybug's pushiness - who does she think she is! - and telling him what to do. He doesn't need advice from _Ladybug_ of all people, thank you. She snaps out of it at last and glares at him, and he's taken aback by her sudden change in demeanour. She looks _annoyed_ at him, as if she hasn't just been doling out advice on what he should be doing! 

Wordlessly, she stamps her foot once and tugs at her pigtails. Then, she looks at him with irritation and leaves. 

_Good riddance,_ he thinks. 

She's crazy, and he can't stand her.

Well, _some_ times.

Truth be told, only when they were fighting each other. 

But... semantics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oop. this chapter got away from me ;P

**Author's Note:**

> send asks or questions about this fic, or anything mlb and i'll be happy to discuss! :D - [activechataclysme.](https://activechataclysme.tumblr.com/)


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